The Indicators Behind The Indicators | Development Gateway or collected by NSOs and used to populate SDG progress reports But in the meantime this mountain of results data must be used by decision makers government officials donor staffers implementing partners to allocate scarce resources toward short term local development objectives So while international measurement efforts are extremely important it s really the quality utility and availability of local data that matters the most With this in mind DG is hosting a consultation meeting today about the Future of Results Data A group of results management leaders will talk about what it will take to make sure that results data are good enough and used well enough to achieve country level goals that are in line with the Post 2015 agenda This consultation meeting will help DG refine the questions and priorities for our year long initiative to elevate the conversation around the quality and utility of development results data We hope to better understand and address the practical challenges that donors governments and other development actors face while collecting sharing and using results data to inform programming We also aim to enable a candid discussion between key agencies governments and organizations about these questions and to set the

What Will It Take To Improve the Quality and Utility of Development Results? | Development Gateway can achieve the most impact However is results data good enough and is it used well enough to really increase the efficacy of development finance Development Gateway is pleased to announce a new initiative funded by a grant from the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation that will help the international development community understand how to increase the quality and utility of development results data Our effort will seek to answer two broad questions First what will it take to make existing results data better and more useful for governments and donors And second how can existing results data be compared shared and used more effectively By addressing these questions our end goal is to demonstrate that better quality results data is obtainable and that there are immediate practical applications for results data that can improve decision making processes at every level of the aid cycle The effort will have two major components 1 a detailed mapping of results data collection management dissemination and use in three countries and 2 a crosswalk of results indicator data from major multilateral and bilateral donors in two sectors By this time next year we will provide a roadmap that development partners can follow to improve

GIS: Myths, Reality, and the New Tools of Today | Development Gateway useful for telling a story illustrating an impact or aiding decision making And the right tools mean it s not about getting more data it s about organizations being able to effectively analyze what they already have quality over quantity So why is GIS such a good fit for the field of development Several reasons really we talk a lot about the local context and the importance of tailoring interventions to on the ground realities Bringing geographic tools into the project cycle lets that happen at every stage from planning to implementation and monitoring This can let an organization s internal audiences visualize what works and what doesn t Geospatial tools are particularly helpful for identifying underserved areas and fragmentation of effort which can ideally lead to improved coordination among development actors For example take the geospatial analysis below conducted by the AidData Center for Development Policy The initial goal of this evaluation was to identify whether education funding was actually going to areas in the country of Nepal with the highest demonstrated need To conduct this analysis AidData researchers first loaded data about illiteracy rates see map on left then combined this information with funding data Places where illiteracy was high but funding low or where illiteracy was low but funding high are identified in the map on the right illustrating aid mismatches Figure 1 Literacy data map left literacy and funding disparities map right Analysis like this can allow government officials and development partners to adjust funding to meet demonstrated need and maximize aid effectiveness Where we often see the greatest knowledge gains is with GIS tools that tap into an organization s existing information management systems This means they build on data that has already been collected significantly reducing costs and keeping organizations from having to overhaul

What is the Aid Management Program? | Development Gateway to monitor the performance of donor funded activities Development Gateway s Aid Management Program provides software tools and institutional strengthening activities to bear in order to improve the availability accessibility and usefulness of aid information at the country level Since 2005 the program has been implemented in 25 countries around the world and tracks over US 650 billion in aid finance Not only has it made government and development partner

How to Find, Analyze, and Apply Aid Data | Development Gateway other datasets So how can we leverage these portals for better analysis and decision making One of the first steps is understanding how these resources can complement enrich and sometimes correct each other Let s take the example of government validated data from Malawi s Aid Management Platform AMP and donor reported data from the IATI datastore Both are included in this Excel download if you d like to follow along note some data processing including currency standardization and XML to Excel conversion has already been performed on the datasets Figure 1 Examples of data about African Development Bank AfDB activities in Malawi from Malawi s AMP top and the IATI Datastore bottom As you can see AMP total commitments and disbursements by year and IATI transactions data here are represented a bit differently this pre processing was done to save time as our data exercise focuses on comparing annual figures by funder Figure 2 Analysis of key field completeness Over DG s years of partnership with country government aid data users we have identified several common key fields critical for ministries of finance and planning The good news is for the sub set of IATI publishers included in this dataset almost all of those key fields are populated meaning that IATI data gaps don t necessarily preclude its inclusion for a more complete picture of aid flows in country where more funding is available through IATI than AMP Figure 3 Comparison of AMP and IATI data for selected funders In the case of Malawi not all funding data match well between the IATI and AMP sets in fact when we run a comparison between commitment and disbursement numbers we can find significant differences in reported figures Some of these discrepancies relate to the timeliness issues highlighted before other times

Meet you at #OGP15 | Development Gateway lead a hands on workshop on how to find analyze and apply aid data By providing an overview of how to find aid information from Aid Management Platform country systems and the IATI datastore as well as some simple ways to analyze this information in Excel we hope to build confidence among participants in finding and using open data As mentioned before key to making open data sustainable and impactful

Beyond Data: Leadership, Values, and the Data Revolution | Development Gateway values to guide the kind of Data Revolution I d like to see Remembering Why Simon Sinek famously observed that people don t follow what you do they follow why you do it We may each be energized by different elements of the SDGs or Data Revolution and it s our responsibility to share what gets us fired up My colleague Susan Stout a great example of this frequently expresses her passion for cultivating the quality and use of local data and not overemphasizing the international extraction of data Sticking to our passions and calling out hot air when we see it is crucial for keeping the Data Revolution honest and on track Listen to culture and personal experience In the ICT world we ve learned how important it is to understand how people feel about using technology have their experiences been positive or are their computers so riddled with viruses that they expect the worst Data is similar feelings experiences and cultural norms around data matter For instance is rolling up one s sleeves and diving into the data considered a desirable or loathsome activity The answer will change depending on where you are and whom you ask and making headway on data uptake requires getting this right Collaboration New technologies and the Open Data movement have created the unprecedented ability to mash up data that were once siloed The huge side benefit Mashing up data has the potential to bring new groups together across sectors functions geographies agencies and more Breaking out of homogenous siloes and collaborating in multi disciplinary teams is key to unlocking insights from newly joined data and to putting diverse skills and expertise to best use Patience John McArthur crediting his mom s wisdom notes that the odd and large number of SDGs and indicators matches the complexity of the global challenges at hand At a recent event he had two pieces of advice Respect the need to explain to people why this is important and embrace the complexity It will take patience and stamina to advocate for investments across the data lifecycle and just as much patience to accept the complexity of the challenges we face without oversimplifying missing the big picture or becoming disheartened Listening Overcoming the barriers to data use and uptake will require more than a technical lift to address issues of data formatting standards and accessibility We ll have to take a holistic look at organizational culture s of data use and decision making By putting ourselves in the shoes of different potential data users by listening and observing how decisions are currently made we can better understand how where and when data can be used to underpin policy decisions Be inquisitive and discerning Ruth Levine reminded a group at the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data Community Event that statistics sometimes reflect the biases of those who created them In the case of the gender data gap less than a third of countries produce sex disaggregated statistics on

Blog | Development Gateway Governance Data Community can Understand Users and Influence Government Decisions The report contains Continue reading Achieving a New Normal Mapping the Future of the AidData and U S Global Development Lab Partnership August 11 2015 Brad Parks Nancy McGuire Choi Mike Tierney innovation When we originally drafted our proposal Continue reading Will there be a Resource War August 06 2015 Taryn Davis A few weeks ago a new report commissioned by members of the G7 was released The report identifies seven Continue reading What s next for U S Government aid transparency August 04 2015 Josh Powell Earlier this month Publish What You Fund s U S Aid Transparency Review showed strong improvements from the U S Government USG Continue reading Will the Real Grand Challenge Please Stand Up July 30 2015 Taryn Davis There have been many grand challenges for development made and fewer met Ken Banks challenges development institutions themselves in his post Continue reading Arrays Objects and Trees A Look at JSON formatted Contracting Data July 28 2015 Daniel Chapman innovation open data The Open Impact Day conference hosted in Washington D C this past month highlighted examples of open data in improving trust between citizens and